President Obama is enlisting the help of former President Bill Clinton in his latest TV ad, a 30-second spot in which the former president casts the election as a "clear choice" between two competing economic plans.

"The Republican plan is to cut more taxes on upper income people and go back to deregulation," Clinton says in the spot. "That’s what got us in trouble in the first place.

Clinton goes on to add that Obama's plan will "rebuild America from the ground up, investing in innovation, education and job training. It only works if there is a strong middle class. That’s what happened when I was president."

The ad will air in New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada, the Obama campaign said.

Clinton, viewed as an effective surrogate for Obama, was recently referenced in an ad for presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. The Romney ad argued that Obama is gutting welfare reform put in place by Clinton in 1996. Clinton denounced the Romney spot, which the Washington Post Fact Checker gave four Pinocchios, a designation for the most misleading arguments.

Sean Sullivan has covered national politics for The Washington Post since 2012.

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